'How S#!t Happens'



… In the beginning was the Plan.
… And then came the Assumptions.
… And the Assumptions were without form.
… And the Plan was without Substance.
… And darkness was upon the face of the ship’s crew.
… And so the crew spoke among themselves saying…

 "It is a crock of shit, and it stinks."

… And so the crew went unto their Leading Petty Officers and said…

 "It is a crock of dung, and we cannot live with the smell."

…  And so the Leading Petty Officers went unto their Chiefs and said…

 "It is a container of organic waste, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."

… And so the Chiefs went unto their Department Heads and said…

 "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."

… And the Department Heads spoke among themselves saying to one another…

 "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."

… And the Department Heads went to the Executive Officer and said…

 "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."

... And so the Executive Officer went to the Skipper and said unto him…

"It has very powerful effects."

... And the Skipper looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good!
... And the Plan became Policy!!
... And that my friends is how shit happens!!!

'Nekkit Lady Nudie Mags, Skin Books & Your Average Smut'

While doing my Sunday deeds at the ol’ Navy Commissary I couldn’t help but notice the most recent Navy Times… ‘Fleet Wide Smut Inspections’… with pictures of ‘Men’s Health,’ ‘Maxim’ and many other lesser magazines the new  ‘PC’ Navy has deemed inappropriate!! I guess Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus has decided what is considered tasteful as opposed to tasteless for our sailors to stamp out what he considers smut!!!

I know this ain’t the first time I’d brought up the differences between today’s Navy and the ol’ Canoe Club we joined way back when… but as near as I can figure most of you old coots wouldn’t recognize today’s Navy! You’d look about as confused as a bunch of short bus riders in a house of fuck’n mirrors I tell ya!!!

Now I know we weren’t blessed with the greatest of brains way back when, and I can appreciate the much improved Wally Cleavers of the new ‘Crackerjack Navy’ but before all the ‘PC’ hoopla… Women’s Rights… and ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ it was the last vestige of the ol’ boys club! It was a hospitable community where young ‘Crackerjacks’ convened to swear, tell dirty jokes, bullshit about lady asses & legs… the ups & downs of large breastess’s and boob jobs, what’s better… the Ford Mustang or the Chevy Camaro, favorite liquors... cigar brands... sports teams… etc. etc…

Yes, it was the last bastion of men being men in front of men… belching, farting, cussing, chest bellowing titty talk’n, ‘No girls or girlie men allowed, entirely and perfectly male paraphernalia!!! Now what the hell is wrong with that?!? I always said the idea of no butt nekkit girlie magazines is nuttier than a porta potty at a peanut factory!! When it comes to gett’n rid of nekkit girlie magazines and good skin books…

“Hey somebody should really get rid of that trash…”

… never came up on my watch… ever!!!

I grew up in an auto-body shop where ‘Champion Sparkplug’ & Snap-On Tool Pin-ups littered the walls and Penthouse Forums were found in every desk! Then I joined a Navy that made me feel right at home!! We never seemed to grow bored with nekkit lady subject matter… ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours high school type of rapid fire fantasies!! And the stuff we looked at

was admittedly unsuitable for Dr Seuss & Cat In The Hat Golden Books of the past… as the titles would range from… ‘Ass Of The Mohicans’… ‘Poca-Hot-Ass’… ‘Backseat Confidential’… ‘Bang the Dong’… ‘Caddy Snatch’… ‘Crammer vs Crammer’… ‘German Whore Fare’… ‘Romancing The Bone’… and many many more!!!

While we sat eagerly oogl’n these rather tasteless skin books…

“What the hell is going on in here?”

“Oh shit it’s Chief!”

“It seems we have a concealed stockpile of porno mags… in my work space!”

“Just a book or two Chief… no big deal!”

“Hmmm… ‘Lord of the G-Strings,’ ‘Saturday Night Beaver’… where do you come up with such literary garbage… this shit will pervert your mind!”

And from there the Chief would be off with your goods hand locked in his bottom file drawer with a carton of Lucky Strikes, a flask full of booze and a small bottle of Vaseline… my guess is!!!

But that was the normal exchange of camaraderie back in those days involving skin book swaps and trade negotiations for the best smut onboard… or at least the least used… pages stuck together of the aforementioned!! AAAAAH don’t judge… any sailor worth his weight in salt has been there done that…

“Sweet tits, you ain’t earned your seamanship ‘til you’d racked up with a stack of skin books while scratch’n your fungus ridden toes across the EEBD holder & stiffened a few pairs of socks!!”

Yes… nekkit girlie magazines were the medium of exchange in the old Navy! And any man with a good stash of books in a vacant side locker was considered a man of good sea going wealth!! Rather it be OUI, Cherrie, Club, Hustler, Penthouse or a good ol’ fashioned Playboy… they were found under pillow cases… mattresses… on top ventilation shafts… behind scuttlebutts… and high up in the angle irons!!!

Fortunes changed hands regularly at quite the going rate… because hard-up ‘Crackerjacks’ will do damned near anything for a ratty ol’ skin book! It was the only common currency of trade from Deck Division all the way down to the Engineering Bilges!! It wasn’t uncommon to swap skin books you’d already taken to the shitter on six or seven previous occasions!!!

“Hey fellas… paste your ‘winking one eye’ on this… I’ll give it up for a pack of smokes!”

“No way! There’s pages stuck together and the print is all smeared… can’t read it!”

“It’s a gauddamned Playboy… there’s no reason for reading it!”

“I can see your point… but You’re still full of shit… ain’t worth a pack of smokes!”

“Come on man, check out the centerfold… body by God, mind by Mattel! You gonna turn that down?”

“The only thing I ever turned down was a ten year old boy in the PI and I turned him face down!”

 “Sick fucker… how ‘bout this… this is some worthy lustful material!”

“Gauddamn! I wouldn’t fuck her with a borrowed Dick! She’s hairy as a bear trap… I like my girls shaved so I can see the little bald man in the boat!” 

“Come on man… it’s masturbation… the cheapest date in town, and she’s hanging open like a pea-coat sleeve!”

“Man, I’d rather jump barefoot off a six foot ladder into a five gallon bucket of porcupines than beat off to that shit!”

“Now this one… this one is worthy of the five knuckle shuffle! That gal wants a loving spoonful of my man gravy in her panty oyster!”

“Yeah man… he’s really great at sex… now all he needs is a partner!”

“Hahahahaha!”

“Hey… I’ve got what it takes… but nobody wants it!”

… and off the feller would go to the filthiest shitter in the joint with a roll of toilet paper gett’n busier than a set of jumper cables in a Redneck picnic!!!

“He’s the only guy I know who had to have penicillin for rubb’n one off!”

Then someone came along and did the Kabuki Dick Dance on our heads and completely FUBAR’d the whole gauddamned game! Tail Hook got publicized and the Navy became ‘Clintonized’ with women showing up and all the sudden the cuss’n… belching… & fart’n all came to a halt!! No more manly talk about titties and breastess’s… no more comparing intelligence levels on carnal knowledge or anything to do with the opposite sex… and last but not least, no more nekkit girlie magazines or skin books!! They all got replaced with Homes & Gardens and shades of Cosmopolitan & Redbook!! Things written by scholarly individuals who’d never set foot on a sea going vessel and knew nothing about manhood!!!

Yes my friends… the sanctuary of the ol’ boys club had been soiled and forever pushed aside for a more kindler, gentler Navy!  The best laid plans of mice and men had changed forever and either someone forgot to ask the important question or if it was asked…

“We have no position on the issue… whatever your position… is now our position… could you tell us what your position is?!?

Yeah… it’s call bend over and brace for shock… we’re gonna cut off your sexual appendage and feed it to ya!! Because it’s only gonna get worse!! No I ain’t all opposed with women on ships… as a matter of fact, when I was on the Rainier I thought it was working out rather well… but boy did shit start to hit the fan!! Soon the ol’ Canoe club started to tap dance and shy away from sexual harassment and other issues and the witch hunts, torch carry’n lynch mobs with ball crush’n hammers & axes came down from the countryside ready to strip us of anything we considered manly!! The policies were made and new liberal edicts were enforced like an invasion from the Mongol Hordes!!!

Now the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ has been repealed and I wonder if men are gonna be allowed to have long hair while wear’n skirts & make-up… is that too much to ask?!? I mean fair is fair in love and war!!!

So ladies and gentlemen… you’d better get rid of your fitness magazines and Victoria Secret Advertisements… hell you’d better cut out the bra & panty issue of your Sears & Robuck catalogs cause they’re coming after you!! No more sexy pin up calenders… no more ‘Babes In Brazzeers’ and definitely no more Cosmopolitan and Maxim mens magazines!!! I suppose nowadays I’d get Court Martialed for peaking at Aborigine Boobies in a National Geographic Magazine with butt nekkit women on the Amazon River… It’s all just a mystery to me!!!

It’s hard not to sweat the petty things when you don’t get to pet your sweaty thing…

♪ ♪ OOOh I love to go swimming with bow legged wimmin… and dive between their legs… ♪ ♪

The Job Interview

A recently retired Old Navy Chief went in for a new job interview…

Personnel Manager: "What is your greatest weakness ?"

Old Navy Chief: "Honesty.

Personnel Manager: “I don’t think honesty is a weakness.”

Old Navy Chief: “I don’t really give a shit what you think.”

 

Thanks to Owyn Bradford HP... an Honorable Royal Shellback

I'd always heard stories... especially in the Norfolk area, but had anyone ever really seen one of these signs before... in a yard or park.... anywhere?!?

‘An Irish Princess’

The lousy part of being a young ‘Crackerjack’ in the land of Great Mistakes was nobody seemed to give two shits about you! You were just another number… a face in the crowd, far from anything special! At least that’s the feeling I got… especially after the initial break up with ‘my’ Suzie Rotten-crotch, countless phone calls, the ‘Dear John’ letter, and a week of Unauthorized Absence with a thumb in the air all the way south to Auburndale, Florida!! Yeah, I’d about got my ass kicked out for my indiscretions… but that’s another story!! Essentially, if you showed up to Quarters in the morning… did your classwork… and kept your uniform intact… that’s all anyone really seemed to give a shit about!!! 

I’d already threaded a yarn on the ol’ Dear John’ letter… and I had mine! Shortly after my heart was broken and I was still reeling from the perfumed calligraphy and lipstick letters, I was out prowling the local streets look’n for a gal to latch onto! But the women of the Great Mistakes variety were hard to come by outside the gates!! Most wanted nothing to do with a foul mouthed young Sailor a thousand miles away from home!! Most gals wouldn’t give a young ‘Crackerjack’ the time of day in those parts… we were looked upon like dirty ol’ dogs with the mange!! At least that’s the feeling I’d got from the place…

“Where do we go to get a big tittied blonde willing to partake in a few hours of horizontal refreshment?”

… as if I was expecting to hook up with a young innocent gal willing to do bizarre stuff with a stranger that has nowhere to call home! I’d imagine many a ‘Crackerjack’ spent a year or so in pure celibacy there in the Great Lakes arena over the years… Unless you were look'n for monetary compromise with one of the ladies walk’n the street, you’d almost have to rely on the gals in uniform there on base… been there & done that, but I was too damned curious of the civilian types out on the town!!!

I’d played my hand on a few occasions with a couple of lookers but it seemed like I might as well had been a leper who escaped the colony being a ‘Crackerjack’ in those parts! Most of the local gals just didn’t care for us squidly types… for whatever the reason it wasn’t for lack of trying… and it sure as hell was a lot harder than it was back home!!!

Then the moment came so unexpectedly! After a day of hack’n golf balls outta sand bunkers with a couple shipmates we acquired a case of beer at the package store for a little underage alcoholic consumption up at the Waukegan Edison Plant on the waterfront… we’d figured it was a perfect place to sit on the tailgate and drink a few brewskies!

After settl’n in I’d looked down the way and there was this gal that caught my eye… she was a picture of enchanting beauty! I’d never been a fan of ‘Red Headed’ women but she had the most beautifully inflamed locks… devilish green eyes… and the fairest skin of a cherub angel… a true attribute to God’s great work!!  A starry-eyed sweetheart, she was quite frankly the epitome of an Irish Princess… kind of like a shot of wet dream déjà vu!!! 

Her name was Meggam, and she was the measure of many a wet dream at that I can attest!  After a few dates and getting to know her well we field tested her Ford Tempo with the brandy colored seats out in the shadows of some housing development on the west side of town!!  We did the horizontal mambo… play’n backseat gymnastics while giving the monkey a banana as young lovers may do!! I think we broke a few wires under the dashboard and stretched out some panty elastic to an extraordinary degree!! That kind of silly nonsense made things a lot of fun… sounds silly now, but at that age it was all a big thrill and brand new!!!

We’d lay in the backseat for hours just wrapped around each other while fogg’n up all the windows in self-induced humidity made of perspiration and heavy panting! Not always exactly thoughtful to our choice of locations… sometimes in the Mall parking lot… or down on the docks… some deserted drive way … once at a red light, it didn’t matter much ‘cause that’s just the way it was at nineteen years old!! Like I said, everything was for the first time and brand new!!!

Sometimes looking back I wonder what made us click so well! We were opposites in so many ways as she was liberally progressive and I had grown up under conservative circumstances! She was feministic and I was full of male induced testosterone and ego!! And you could bet your thirteen button crackerjack bottom blues she could be just as ornery and hot-tempered as a pissed off wild cat!! She was independent and didn’t like to be told what to do… stubborn and strong-willed yet bold and intelligent, and extremely passionate!! She could be an ornery cuss who refused to reconcile with defeat… and we’d sometimes argue til’ the sun came up about anything from politics to religion and anything else under the sun… I was a George Bush Senior fan and she was a Michael Dukakis fan… she was pro-choice, me not so much!!

She was feministically empowered and I thought testoserone should rule the world with an ‘Iron Fist’… yet she always saw the humor and seemed to appreciate my point of view even if it didn’t fit into her brand of thinking!! She knew how to exercise reciprocal respect and didn’t get fazed by the ups & downs of our little debates of competitive dialogue… not usually anyway!! Yes, we had our differences, but the only time I can remember really pissing her off?!?

Meg was the kind of gal… real easy to talk too! We’d have marathon sessions on the telephone!! I’m talking til’ 0200 in the morning kind of conversations when you gotta be up at 0600 to be on time for class!! I don’t think I’d ever met a gal I could just talk to forever and not get enough!! Well, one evening the conversation led to the fascination in a woman’s virginity…

“You’re a guy… so what is it about a woman’s virginity that entices men so much?”

…Me…

“Oh I don’t know… innocence, maybe the idea of being that first guy?”

… Seconds later the phone slams on the other end revealing a very angry woman!! Obviously this was a sore subject… she wasn’t a virgin when we met and apparently I made her feel less special…

Boy I could just feel it in my bones… she just led me like a lamb into the slaughter! I knew I’d pissed her off and I could probably spend the rest of my time here wondering what the hell happened!! She was all over me like flies on shit! She was one hell of a debater and glided me right into this argument using both her talents and vixen like personality to put me in such a gauddamned conundrum!! All I knew was I wanted outta that conversation like a fat kid play’n dodge ball!! And that’s when you know you’re in a true relationship… when you start to test one another!!

Yeah… she was madder than a blind lesbian in a fish market… but at the end of the conversation I somehow persuaded her to come to base and give me some sugar! It was one of them kiss and make up kind’a situations!!!

Then the time had come when I’d gotten my orders to San Diego… probably, and for good reason, one of the small details as to why them local girls didn’t like gett’n too close to us sailor types!! At the time Meg had told me before I left…

“I’ll follow you to the ends of the Earth… all you have to do is say so… you know I would.”

But she had a good future ahead of her and I knew I’d only keep her down! Besides, this was probably the only meaningful relationship I’d had with someone that ended on a good note!! When I left she gave me something to remember her by … a gesture I held on to for some time!!!

We continued to write for a spell… but somewhere, somehow we lost touch… lost what we had! I could no longer count on those sweet letters in the mail as time unraveled things and we’d went our separate ways!!! 

But every so often… every once in a great while… I get that feel good shiver in the back of my neck running down my spine… when an old memory of a young Irish Princess who made life in the back of an old Ford Tempo in the wee hours of the night the only care I had in the world… forgetting about everything else but living in the moment!!!

'Movie Night'

Back in the day… on many a Navy Carrier when movie projectors were still the thing... the movie screen was suspended amid-ship so that it could be viewed from both sides. This procedure made available to larger crowds for the more popular flicks… ‘Debbie Does Dallas’ and the so forth… but usually the junior personnel got a reverse image from 'the wrong side of the screen.'

One evening at dinnertime an enterprising young Seaman passed the following word over the  1MC…

 "The movie to be shown in the Hangarbay tonight, for the senior personnel on the right side of the screen, ‘The Right-Handed Gun’ starring Paul Newman."

… break …

"For the junior nonrated types on the wrong side of the screen – The Left-Handed Gun, starring Namwen Luap."